03 February 2011

Indonesian Pop Star Sentenced to 3½ Years for Sex Tapes

Twenty-nine-year-old Nazril "Ariel" Irham—lead singer of the popular boyband Peterpan—was sentenced to three and a half years for violating the strict anti-pornography laws in the world's most-populous Muslim-majority nation. The two blurry, homemade sex videos showed him and his current and former celebrity girlfriends, and found their way to the Internet in early June, reports CBSNews.com.

The clips were spread on Facebook and YouTube and quickly distributed by mobile phone, prompting the government to try to impose an online filter on porn, which has been unsuccessful thus far. Irham contends the tapes were stolen from his house and posted online without his consent, but presiding Judge Singgih Budi Prakoso said the pop star did nothing to prevent their widespread distribution.

Irham was the first celebrity to be charged under Indonesia's strict anti-pornography law, which was pushed through by extremists in 2008 despite strong opposition from the public and some members of government. [The judge] sentenced the singer to 3 1/2 years in jail and ordered him to pay a $25,000 fine. The man who admitted to posting the tapes online was sentenced Monday in a separate trial to two years in jail.

An attorney for Irham said he would appeal the ruling. It is not yet clear if the women in the videos will also be punished.

In 2010, the editor-in-chief of Playboy Indonesia began a two-year prison term for "publishing pictures of scantily clad women," adds the Wall Street Journal.